The musical “The Who’s Tommy” boasts some of the most celebrated songs in rock — from “See Me, Feel Me” to “Pinball Wizard” to “I’m Free.”

The show also carries a reputation as one of the biggest spectacles to hit the Broadway stage. Its original 1993 New York production, which launched a year earlier at La Jolla Playhouse under the direction of Des McAnuff, set new standards for tech effects in live theater.

So a key question John Vaughan had to ask himself when he took on the assignment of directing and choreographing the piece for Moonlight Stage Productions: “How can you keep it true to the spectacle of a rock concert, and still keep it within (a smaller budget)?”

One answer Vaughan has come up with is to use animated projection sequences on two large screens for Moonlight’s outdoor production of the show, which opens next week. The conceptual approach also incorporates geometric shapes that evoke pinball machines.

“I think the audience will be very pleased,” Vaughan says, noting that the show still will feature an onstage rock band.

Vaughan has previously worked on several productions of “The Who’s Tommy” for other theaters, although this is his first time both directing and choreographing. One more key question he had in mind for the Moonlight staging: How to make the show family-friendly enough for the setting?

After all, the rock opera by The Who leader Pete Townshend and Co. about the “deaf, dumb and blind” pinball ace includes some mature themes of violence, mental illness and child abuse.

Vaughan said his answer was simply to emphasize the story at the show’s heart, and let the rest flow from that.

“It’s his journey back to wholeness,” Vaughan says of the central character. “If you can make it about that, then you can (also) make it about the more sensational aspects. You can’t shy away from (those aspects); we certainly didn’t cut any of that.”

Vaughan’s own journey with “Tommy” began when he saw the 1970s Ken Russell film adaptation and was mesmerized.

“I remember watching (the movie) and thinking, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ ” he says. “It made me run out and buy not only the movie album but the (earlier) concept album.”